


light a roman candle with me

by philthestone



Series: pocket full of sand 'verse [6]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, shameless flangst I tell you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-16
Updated: 2015-05-16
Packaged: 2018-03-30 20:25:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3950557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/philthestone/pseuds/philthestone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anakin really, <em>really</em> needs a haircut. (AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	light a roman candle with me

**Author's Note:**

> shameless flangst inspired by Anakin's shaggy mop of hair. Takes place maybe six months after "through heaven's eyes", and title's from Fun.
> 
> reviews are really, really good spaghetti.

It’s not that she hasn’t noticed it before. 

She notices most things about him earlier than anyone else, usually. And especially after not having seen him for so long - her eyes immediately zero in on every minute detail that has changed since the last time she clapped eyes on him, every small alteration in his appearance ( _the tiredness in his eyes, the way he stands up a little taller and favors his right leg, how the blue in his irises has become softer, less intense, how his skin is darker and his scar stands out white-against-tan over his eye and the golden highlights in his hair_ ) immediately compared to the man she has constructed in her mind’s eye, put together from holos and old shouldn’t-be-so-fond memories and the ache in her heart.

So when he pokes his head in her cell and she looks at him through bruisedbeaten eyes and half-drugged thoughts and he tugs the beret off of his head and gathers her gently up in his arms in one sweeping movement, crosses the distance from door to bench in one step and presses her to him ( _Padmeyou’realiveyou’reokay mylovemylove you’realiveit’salriightwe’llbealrightnow_ ), she only barely registers the fact that his hair is in a _ponytail_ before kissing him hungrily, hands twisting into the Imperial uniform that is his disguise and not caring whether or not it is the Time or Place, because _damn_ it it might just be a hallucinated dream but it’s _there_ and he’s _there_ and she’s going to grab on and never, ever let go. 

But now she’s no longer drugged, or half-dead with exhaustion or seeing her not-really-long-lost (criminal, fugitive, vigilante, Rebel Leader, rogue of a very attractive Jedi) husband for the first time in nearly six years; now, it’s been confirmed that he is one-hundred percent real and now, her daughter is instructing her son in the art of mischief and causing a ruckus with scavenged toy battleships in the next room (and she can hear Obi-Wan poke his head in the room every five minutes to ask if they could keep it down, please, he’s _trying_ to meditate -); now, they are finally a whole family again and actively fighting against the Empire and not sure if they’ll still be alive tomorrow but, finally, unchangeably, definitively _all together again._

And he’s sitting at the three-legged table in the middle of their shared quarters pouring over assault schematics and his hair, lighter than she’s seen it in a long, long time ( _there are two suns on Tatooine_ , she remembers) with strands poking out haphazardly in odd directions and dangling in front of his nose -

Is in a ponytail.

If she’s completely honest, she rather likes it. It makes him look far more of the branded Rogue he is than the oft-disheveled single father she remembered (from that last time she saw him, a chance meeting in a corner of an information drop-off at Sullust), or the boyish mop that she had stolen kisses with in the years before Palpatine seized power. 

Padme thinks, with a tiny thrill, that when she runs her fingers through it now, she can undo it from its binding before feeling it in her hands, tangled and thick. 

(She wonders if this is what _he_ feels like, unwinding her hair at night.)

But it’s still long, and incredibly impractical, and goddess help her but he’s _always_ stealing her hair bindings now.

“Anakin Skywalker,” she decides, watching him start and glance up from the datapads he was so engrossed in to give her a distracted _mmm?_. “You need a haircut.”

“I do?”

She puts her hands on her hips. “It’s hanging all the way to your shoulders, Ani. And you keep stealing my hair ties.”

“I keep -” He frowns, mechanical hand tapping an erratic rhythm on the surface of their little three-legged table. “I do not. I find my own.”

“That,” she says, “is _manifestly_ untrue. Look, you’re wearing one right now.”

He raises his chin in defiance (a habit that he’s definitely picked up from her). “I know for a fact that I found this piece of string on the ground this morning on my way from Rieekan’s briefing.”

"I dropped my piece of string this morning,” she reminds him.

“This,” he says stubbornly, “is not the same piece of string.”

"It most definitely is.”

“Is not.”

His lip his poked out in a stubborn pout, eyebrows scrunched together and arms crossed. She realizes that her own arms are crossed and uncrosses them quickly. She can feel the disbelieving laugh bubble up in her throat.

They’re arguing over a piece of _string_.

"Alright, fine. It’s your piece of string. But honestly, Ani, your hair has gotten far too long.”

There is a pause, wherein he taps his fingers against his chin and considers her. 

“Leia likes it,” Anakin eventually says, his tone carrying an air of finality, and turns to go back to his datapads. 

“Leia likes it?” she repeats, slightly thrown off-guard.

“Yep. She says it makes me look more like a pirate, which is apparently a good thing. And she used to practice braiding with it, so that she could do it on herself when I was away.”

(And he mentions this so casually, offers a piece of their life to her so generously, because she often forgets that she wasn’t there all those years - and neither was he - and they’re still working on filling in all the gaps.)

“Oh,” she says lamely, and clasps her hands in front of her. 

He glances up from the datapads again. “Though I suppose she can practice on you now.”

“No,” she says quickly. “No, it’s perfectly - I mean.” ( _That would be wrong._ ) ”Never mind.”

“Padme?”

“I didn’t know,” she says, after a moment (and he’s looking at her quizzically with his eyebrows drawn in and she’s fiddling with the hem of her shirt and it’s all so _frustrating_ because she can feel the irrational lump grow in her throat). “That Leia would - that you taught her how to braid her hair. I’d just assumed that - I don’t know.” She slides down into the seat opposite from him. “It’s silly, really.” She tries smiling at him, eyebrows creased in apology. “It’s just that I’d always thought that if I had a little girl, I’d teach her how to braid her hair.”

“You -” And he finally puts the datapads down. “Oh, Padme.” His hand covers her own and he laughs, almost shakily. “You can still teach her. I’m total rubbish at braiding hair.”

“No, it’s not that, it’s not - I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m just being silly. And I’m sure there are any number of things that you wanted to do with Luke that you never could and now it might be too late, but - I just. Anyway. You don’t have to cut your hair.”

He’s looking at her, blue eyes maybe a tiny bit brighter than usual (and she remembers that they’re both in this together, both struggling to fix all the broken pieces left behind).

“I can cut my hair,” he says. “If it’s bothering you.”

She shakes her head, giving him a small smile. 

“Oh, no,” she says. “If Leia says it makes you look like a pirate, then it simply has to stay.”

“Ah,” says her husband, “she’ll get over it. I’m sure she won’t always have a fascination with pirates.”

Padme shrugs, and bites her lip. “Well, maybe just a little trim. So that you can stop stealing my hair ties.”

Anakin groans. “I found this one on the ground!”

“Well -”

“If you’re talking about Dad’s hair binder,” chirps their eleven-year-old daughter's bright voice from the doorway, as she walks towards the cooling unit by the small collapsible stove, “then he’s totally lying. He found it on the bedside table and was too distracted to think things through this morning so he just took it.”

Anakin frowns.

“Tattletale.”

Leia grins and hops onto one of the stools, half a ration bar in hand. “Luke can confirm the evidence, Mom.”

“Oh _really_ ,” says Padme, arching an eyebrow in her husband’s direction.

"I remember picking it up from the floor,” Anakin insists stubbornly.

“Jeez, Dad,” says Luke’s voice, as he too enters the kitchenette. “Putting stuff you found on the floor into your hair is gross. You could get, like, Adnerronian lice or something. Han was telling Chewie about it yesterday.”

“I’m not going to win here, am I?” asks Anakin, and Padme shares a look with her children.

“Seriously, Mom,” says Leia, eyes twinkling with a mischief that makes her look unnervingly like her father. “I’d cut his hair as punishment, if I were you.”


End file.
